It’s Done
On Iran: looking forward, not back.
A note from Garry Kasparov: Join me TODAY (Wednesday, March 4) at 5pm ET/2pm PT. I’ll be hosting a timely Zoom conversation with Ed Luce, US editor for the Financial Times and author of Zbig: The Life and Times of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Great Power Prophet. It’ll be an important discussion on a half-century of lessons for US foreign policy amid a cascading crisis in Iran. This call is exclusive to premium subscribers of The Next Move. To make joining easier, we’re offering 30% off subscriptions, but today is the last day for this deal! Premium subscribers get invitations to these exclusive conversations, early access to podcasts—and you might even win an autographed chess set! You can find registration information at the bottom of this post.
Evan Gottesman is the director of communications and special projects at the Renew Democracy Initiative and managing editor of The Next Move.
On Saturday, February 28, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Before the day was out, the Israeli Air Force had killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, along with a number of other senior leaders. American and Israeli strikes also severely damaged Iran’s military infrastructure.
Ayatollah Khamenei is not going to be brought back to life. The world as it existed before February 28 cannot be restored. We should long for neither.
Under Khamenei’s rule, Iran orchestrated attacks on embassies, diplomats, and dissidents, including assassination plots on American soil. The Islamic Republic propped up dictators and terrorists in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza, and equipped the Russian military with deadly drones in Ukraine.
Khamenei’s was also a virulently antisemitic regime, and its fingerprints could be found on all sorts of violent schemes targeting Jews—most notoriously the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Worst of all was the bloody domestic repression carried out in Khamenei’s name. Just a month ago, the Iranian government murdered tens of thousands of protesters. Recall the shock and horror we felt when ICE agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and amplify it by several orders of magnitude.
Removing a dictator with Khamenei’s longevity (nearly five decades in power, first as president and then as supreme leader) provides openings for something different to emerge. Taking out Iranian military assets leaves the regime weaker.
Of course, what happened over the weekend is likely just the first chapter in a longer saga. And how this story began matters, because it will influence everything still to come.
Donald Trump opened this war without proper congressional oversight, and in doing so, likely broke the law.
In the United States, it is Congress that has the power to declare war, not the president. The point of this is twofold. First, to prevent one person from amassing too much power (and warmaking is the most terrible power an individual can hold). The second point is to ensure accountability and oversight and prevent the country from stumbling into quagmires abroad. This is a key element of America’s constitutional order, yet the legislative branch has gradually ceded that prerogative to the executive.
Save for a few anti-war progressives on the Democratic side and a handful of libertarian Republicans, both parties were content with this modus vivendi, especially if they held the White House.
The pre-February 28 imperial presidency is not a status quo Americans can afford to return to. Yes, Ali Khamenei was an evil man, and Iran and the world are better off without him. However, a moral case for military action is not a legal justification. And since Donald Trump is not particularly constrained by moral considerations, it is all the more urgent that Congress reclaim its authority.
ICYMI: Tune in to the latest episode of the Older/Wiser podcast:
Some Democrats on Capitol Hill are demanding Trump present a plan on Iran (his zigzagging interviews suggest he doesn’t have one). They are right to press the issue. Every aimless lurch needlessly endangers American servicemembers and diplomats, Iranian civilians, as well as people living in the Gulf states and Israel.
But this demand is only one half of the equation.
Democrats need a plan of their own. If Congress is to reassert its constitutional authority, then it needs to behave like a co-equal branch of government with its own initiatives and ideas rather than simply reacting to what the president does. Even if Congress manages to apply the brakes tomorrow, the supreme leader will still be dead. Iran’s government and military will still be in disarray. There is no way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The question is what we do with the pieces.
If Democrats halt Trump’s war, will they freeze Iran’s headless regime and postpone the question of that country’s future? Or do they have a strategy to capitalize on the moment and ensure that Khamenei is not just replaced with another dictator (as happened when Trump swapped Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro for one of the ousted strongman’s lieutenants)?
Can the removal of Khamenei be leveraged to weaken the broader authoritarian alliance? Ukraine has been hit by nearly 60,000 Iranian-made drones since 2022 and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is offering to help address the Iranian drone threat in the Middle East.
There’s also a larger dilemma: How do the Democrats suggest we deal with bad actors who abuse the rules of the international system?
Tehran mastered the use of proxies in order to have things both ways. Iran spent decades cultivating the legitimacy of a sovereign government while carrying on a global terror campaign. Each eulogy describing the late Ali Khamenei as a mere “head of state” and lamenting US-Israeli “aggression” is tribute to the success of this PR strategy.
In reality, the difference between Ali Khamenei and Osama bin Laden was mostly cosmetic: one had a seat in the United Nations and a flag on First Avenue; the other operated out of a cave.
Plenty of bad actors hide behind these same diplomatic fictions. Sure, no one gave the United States the right to play judge, jury, and executioner with foreign dictators. But no one gave those dictators a mandate to lead. They acquired it via brute force. February 28 showed that if autocrats want to live by those vicious rules, they risk dying by them too.
Reverting to a pre-February 28 world means authoritarian thugs get to wage war on democracies while enjoying the protection of our institutions.
Playing nice with bad guys today often means an even worse outcome tomorrow. We’ve witnessed this dynamic before: America’s awkward attempts to normalize ties with Putin’s Russia, from George W. Bush’s naive embrace to Barack Obama’s misguided reset, gave Moscow the cover it needed to launch a genocidal war in Ukraine.
The US and its allies have the strength to stop the rogues and revisionists who threaten them. Donald Trump throws around America’s might recklessly. We need to figure out how to wield that power prudently and decisively.
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I know there were a few reasons for him blowing up Iran…just like I used to have a few reasons to go to the gym when I was in college (health, muscles, cute girls…)
But, it’s the Perfect incentive trap: If they lose power, they face investigation and consequences. So maintaining power becomes existential, not political.
When losing office means potential prison, leaders don’t optimize for good governance, they optimize for staying in power by any means necessary. War, emergency powers, suppressing opposition, provoking crises that justify extraordinary measures…all become rational strategies.
This is why authoritarian systems become self-reinforcing. The initial abuses create the necessity for more abuses to avoid accountability for the first ones. The corruption compounds until leaving power peacefully becomes impossible.
They aren’t governing, They’re fortifying. Every norm broken, every institution captured, every crisis manufactured makes voluntary departure less viable.
The system locks them in…and locks everyone else out.
Cheeto’s Gestapo Demands Loyalty
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat who has studied in depth past fascist regimes joined Elias in a illuminating YouTube video(https://bit.ly/4lb0QbA) to discuss Cheeto’s authoritarian reach with the CNPP(Christian Nationalist Pedo Party) Even though he sounds like an idiot/moron, make no mistake Cheeto is one of the most skilled propagandist in the last 50y and the CNPP plan to destroy America
There is no doubt that Cheeto’s ICE/CBP can be labeled as a paramilitary force(Gestapo) of the CNPP(Christian Nationalist Pedo Party) Either you are with our fascist movement or you’re not When a group forms you’re either part of our group or you’re a childless cat lady, you’re either part of the group or you’re labeled a globalist, ie Jewish enemy and is everywhere and must be ostracized Cheeto despises Americans unless some Americans are loyal to him Being a malignant narcissist everything revolves around Cheeto’s ego and his need for adulation
Fascist movements such as CNPP and their dictators become more reckless as their polling numbers go down NEVER give up on elections Protests are so so so important Do not minimize your power A Big Tent protest is coming involving all facets of American society(labor unions etc)